Strategic partnerships that can take the IRS’ modernization mission to the next level by bringing together different types of technologies “are what we’re looking for” to make the anticipated EDOS contract successful, Senior Technical Advisor Wyatt Webb told the Government Technology & Services Coalition’s IRS Days 2022.
“It is the IRS’ intent that there’s partnerships, that industry and vendors really partner together to bring the best of all worlds,” Webb said.
The Enterprise Development Operations Services (EDOS) Multiple Award Blanket Purchase Agreement contract estimated to be worth more than $2.5 billion includes a wide range of design, development, implementation, operations, and maintenance tasks. “The contractor shall provide support services regardless of the selected engineering lifecycle path, methodology or approach for development and delivery of program capabilities,” IRS said in the agency’s description of the contract opportunity, adding that development paths may include agile, waterfall, iterative, commercial off-the-shelf, mobile apps, managed services, or other IRS-approved paths.
The RFP is expected to be released in the third quarter of fiscal year 2022, with an anticipated award in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023.
The last industry day on EDOS drew more than 200 industry partners. Acquisition Manager and Senior Contracting Officer Michael Villano said the “importance of early and frequent communication” is understood and more industry engagements are expected, including one-on-one sessions.
Industry engagement led the IRS to step back from its initial plan for a single task order and consider that “maybe this isn’t the best approach,” he said, adding that the multiple-award approach benefits innovation and cost as well as offers flexibility to determine whether two, three or four vendors will get the contracts.
“It’s really going to come down to the evaluation and proposals,” Villano said. “Just remember the goals of what we’re trying to do with EDOS consolidation.”
Villano said none of the current contracts being rolled into EDOS are 8a, and an RFI asking if small businesses could do the work as a prime contractor received no responses. “This is a behemoth – no surprise there,” he noted. “We did put that out there and ask.”
Webb stressed that EDOS intends to “ensure competition but also to ensure innovation – you stifle one, you stifle the other.” And industry collaborations are expected to bring that innovation: “They need to bring the partners to bear, big and small come together to bring the best set of capabilities we can award against,” he said.
“We want to hear from industry… if you have an innovative idea or solution, please bring it to us,” Villano said, adding that when it comes to EDOS “we are taking our time… we want to do this the right way.”
